The marketing of private (and one on one) teaching PT 2

Beside the SWOT analysis an other important starting point in our activity is the so called ‘marketing-mix’. As in every activity, in private teaching too the service provider (teacher) must analyse exactly what kind of products, in this case service, has he got, for what Price, in what Place, how is he doing the Promotion- these being the four P-s of the marketing mix. The proper Product (Service)- should be for a proper Price at the proper Place with the proper Promotion.
A service is proper if there is a need for it- the most wonderful course about modern American literature can be useless for people who want to improve their communication skills basically.
About the proper price- we have to take in consideration the fact that if the price is too high there’re no customers , if it it’s too low there’s no profit, and of course the prices on the market, as well as what are our target customers.( E.g. businessmen, university students etc.)
As far as the proper place is concerned, the best place for private teaching is of course the center of a city, but a room or flat close to a big university center, school, or in residential area with a lot of young families may have its advantage of course.
The efficient promotion of the provided service is discussed separately, but we must know that without appropriate advertising we cannot have an efficient and profitable activity, especially if we don’t teach in school at the same time, which could provide us a pool of potential private students.

Special aspects of private English teaching

For most of us it is quite clear that the need for English teaching throughout the world is continuously growing, and not just of private teaching of course. Those who work in this specific teaching area are given the pleasant situation of being involved in an area which is showing an increasing tendency which can be exploited. At the same time the request in the market can be irregular ( decreasing in summer ), or for some customers it can be negative ( meaning that they attend the courses only as a necessity- like going to the dentist ). These two aspects can be treated by an efficient teacher: he can try to convince the students or their parents about the importance of the continuity of studying , in the summer holiday too, the negative attitude towards teaching being possible to be influenced by entertaining ( think about music at advanced classes !), varied classes, a well as the use of modern, enjoyable ELT materials.
An aspect that should be in brief discussed is the special type of service we provide. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs on the basic level we have the physiological needs, continuing with the safety needs, social needs ,self- esteem needs and finally the highest level, the need for self-expression. It’s theoretically easy to sell milk, beer or ice-cream because a lot of our fellow-beings buy these. But the market is more sophisticated and restricted in the case of the last two categories of needs, as in the case of language teaching. And this results more pretentious customers, usually with high level of intelligence and education, which should be challenging, but especially for beginner teachers difficult to face.
On the other hand a good private teacher should try to sell his courses as ‘advantageus products, or services’, not as only ‘useful products’. While these products have only long-term advantages, the previous ones cause immediate saticfaction too. This means that the students should feel the pleasure and satisfaction of progressing at every class.
Finally a personal advice. Private English teaching is a service, and as most of the services, it has a feature that we can call ‘ perishable’. This means that for example a hotel room at the seaside cannot be sold in winter. In the same way, if we have a student programmed at 6 and he will not come, we will not be able to sell this class to someone else. So be strict from the beginning: a programmed lass must be reprogrammed, or if not possible , payed. This way your students will come regularly for sure. If it seems too drastic, think about the group courses which must be payed in advance.